1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a manipulator that accepts setup operations to manipulate electric devices, such as a volume setting of an audio device and a temperature setting of an air conditioner.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, it is known to mount different electric devices on a motor vehicle, such as a car navigation device, audio device and an air conditioner (AC), in order to improve comfort for a driver and a passenger riding on the motor vehicle. A manipulator is arranged near a driver seat, for example, on an instrument panel of the motor vehicle, which includes a plurality of switches, buttons and the like for manipulating these devices. Recently, there are an increasing number of devices mounted on a motor vehicle and an increasing number of functions added to each device. Thus, this tendency requires more switches, buttons and the like to manipulate these devices, and causes problems of low physical arranging space in a motor vehicle.
For this problem, it is practical to use a manipulator that has a reduced number of switches and buttons, by mounting a display, such as a liquid crystal display, on an instrument panel of a motor vehicle and by making the display show different menus. That manipulator may resolve the low physical space problem described above, by increasing the number of menus shown on the display in response to an increase in the number of devices and an increasing in the number of functions of each device.
A patent document 1 discloses: a display apparatus that shows a menu; frame portion that surrounds the display apparatus and a plurality of input devices that are arranged on the frame portion, in order to activate or select a desired function by handling an input device which is located at a position corresponding to a menu shown on the display apparatus.
[Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-195768